Chandrashekara Temple

I'm still on with a hangover of Hampi! Hampi is a world heritage site, formerly a capital city of the Vijayanagar kingdom.

Some pictures from the area near the Chandrashekara temple.




There was one guy who was reading sitting in the temple premises. It just added to the serenity of the place!












This is an Octogonal bath near the temple. Seems like bathing was a pretty public activity is all historical civilisations.










The best way to explore Hampi is by bicycle. The slopes of the landscape and the beauty of the ruins flex different parts of the body - the legs and the heart respectively!










The landscape is weird like in no other place. There are rocks of various sizes and shapes hanging and placed in precarious looking equilibria. Nature's creations and man's manicuring - giving fantastic visual delights!

'Bangalored' has a new meaning!

Wet, wet, wet! That's the theme of the month for Bangalore and it's 8 million populace this October. All old records have been broken in term so rainfall and wetness of every day.

Under these circumstances, the daily woes of the residents of Bangalore getting stuck in no man's land and having to wade through water all the time has become a common story in every hosehold! May be, that's the new meaning of 'Bangalored'! The infrastructure or whatever is left of it, is in shambles. Complete shambles!

The reason for this deluge is more man made than nature's fury. Earlier, Bangalore was known to be the city of lakes. Lakes had natural inward and outward flows that could distribute the rainwater among themselves. Then came the ugly side of 'development'. Layouts were created out of Lake beds and reclaimed land. Damn it, when there is so much land in the country, why destroy a lake to claim land. Well, such is the mentality of land sharks and their real estate dreams - money and only money is their motive. And look who's paying the price for such deeds! Are we all not 'Bangalored' now?

Do we have disaster fatigue?

This is a thought that has been haunting me in the last few days in the aftermath of the Kashmir earthquake. I'm forced to compare my own feelings as well as the reaction of our nation to the disaster that has struck Kashmir(both sides) in the form of the earthquake! When the Tsunami struck the East coast, we all toppled over each other to rush aid and rescue materials to Nagapattinam and Cuddalore. When the earthquake in Kashmir happens, not even my company which is a very socially conscious firm, has declared any kind of donations to the Prime Minister's Relief fund! Why? Are these Kashmiris not our people? It's true that most of them don't consider themselves Indians, but I'm beginnin to wonder how much we consider them Indians. There's a feeling that had the same thing happened even in Jammu, just south of Kashmir, we would've again given the same kind of reaction as what we gave Tamil Nadu or Mumai or Western Maharashtra.

That brings us to the next question. Are we doing this because or religion by any chance? Had it been Hindus/Sikhs/Christians killed and affected, would we have reacted differently? Or may be even if it was a mainland muslim? By mainland I mean the large parts of India that does feel part of the same country. I'm not saying that this would've been the case, but just thought occurs in my mind. I'm appalled even at my own biased reaction to these incidents!
I thought this would've been a golden oppurtunity to send the message that we care. But we have failed quite badly. Even the media has largely ignored the tragedy. We don't find that many articles in newspapers! No coverage!

The other argument is that we are truly fatigued by disasters. We are beginning to accept them as part of life. First the Tsunami, then Mumbai and then these incessant rains that continue to lash Karnataka, Maharashtra. May be we have started treating things as everyday occurences!
Any thoughts? Any alternative explanations ?

Humans the Virus : Perspective

This is a picture taken in the Valley of Flowers in the Himalayas - Uttaranchal state of India. This is a very unique ecosystem where you can see green, white and multitude of colurs of the flowers. This is from a friend's recent visit to this valley.







Consider the Earth as a human being. What happens when a virus attacks us? We get a fever - that's Global warming for you. The virus cannot survive outside a host - so it kills to survive - that's what we human beings have done!

Virus spreads from one part of the body to another rapidly - virus multiplies at a alarming rate and can even cause death if the immune system cannot cope. That's why you see flooding in NJ, Bomaby, a Tsunami or an earthquake - that's the body of the Earth reacting to us - the viruses!!

The more powerful viruses take more than the weaker viruses - that's why a human being in US consumes 1000 times more paper than an average Indian. Dumping toxic wastes in all parts of the body - that's exactly what a virus does!! The only way this planet can survive is when we stop taking more than what we deserve! Money is a device created by the more powerful viruses to occupy more space and more power .. let's stop being viruses and start using that brain of ours! Otherwise, death for the planet is certain - and death for a host also means death for the virus ..

The point is - how do we start? Begin by saying 'No' to plastics. Use for really essential things. Don't cut yourselves from Nature. Stop enclosing your souls into closed spaces with air-conditioning! We have a beautiful ecosystem of existence in India now - we need to clean up surroundings definitely - but let's not cut ourselves off from the host called Earth!

First day at School

I have very fond memories of my school and of the JIPMER campus. Most of what I am today in terms of opinions and impressions were formed from those days. I trust fellow human beings so much because Pondicherry is a place where nothing wrong seemed to take place! I am optimist who believes that the world will find its balance eventually - because even if wealth was not around so much, there was always happiness. Even today I see glowing faces, smiling teeth and an unshakable faith in the world, in Pondicherry. An extremely mild people who do not talk too much - is a gift of Shri Aurobindo and the Mother to Pondicherry.

But in today's world, will people like me get consumed? Am I living in a fool's paradise thinking everything is alright with the future of the world and my place in it? Everywhere I look around, aggression seems to be the way. And I can never get aggressive for any logical reason, I do get aggressive as a reaction to something stupid! It's more a form of defense.

Coming back to those days of Childhood, I took photographs of the hard copies of the snaps from those days when I went to Pondy last weekend.




This was the first day at school in Kendriya Vidyalaya, JIPMER! The other kid in the photo is Sandeep, my cousin-bro.
















This snap was taken in Wilson Garden house with Sandeep and Ashwin. People say there's a huge resemblance between Sandeep and me - lot of teachers at school always confused our names!

Ahh Pondicherry!!

Pondicherry is home. That's where I spent my formative years. Everytime I go back there, I feel part of the environment. Outsiders say people don't talk much in Pondy - life is a meditation living there! Here's a photo essay of some of the places in the old city or town area of Pondy. These pictures should speak for themselves.